SKYFARING

Drifting through vacant spaces vast of sleep,

One overtook me like a flying star

And whirled me onward in his glistering car.

From shade to shade the wingèd steeds did leap,

And clomb the midnight like a mountain-steep;

Till that vague world where men and women are,

Ev'n as a rushlight down the gulfs afar,

Paled and went out, upswallowed of the deep.

Then I to that ethereal charioteer:

“O whither through the vastness are we bound?

O bear me back to yonder blinded sphere!”

Therewith I heard the ends of night resound;

And, wakened by ten thousand echoes, found

That far-off planet lying all-too near.